After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World

Interestingly, among the mathematicians, a few [Scholar] professions had appeared and some inherited skills that was very much like Data Analysis.

With their help, the huge amount of information they bought off in the past couple of months had been handled well.

Loki had also handed a few-page summary each for both territories, handed over to all elders to peruse.

"Its main industry is metallurgy," he said. "It also collects iron, and has a few subsidiaries associated with iron mining."

Apparently, much of the iron mines were in that area, and Iron mines were much more common there than in their region. The only reason Alterra's takeover of Guia took a while to bother them was because they had other sources.

Garan listened deeply. He had read a bit of the information when they came, though there was too much information to get consolidated at the time.

"It seems to be Guia's true master, or at least directly related to it."

Everyone nodded, agreeing completely, and the reminder also made them tense. They knew for a long time that Guia was sending iron and money to a master territory

Jonathan was under oath so he couldn't say much, except give out a couple of hints. From him, they could surmise that there was another town and also another city associated with it. They now know that Valov Town was likely one of these.

Considering Valov's specialty, it was obvious that a mysterious City required massive amounts of iron.

Why?

"We also heard something, but we still need a bit of time to confirm it," Loki added with that monotonous tone of his. "It seems that Baltimore is one of the two offspring of the Valov Town Lord."

Baltimore was the former Lord of Guia Town and was someone Garan killed directly.

"Oh?"

"That's interesting."

"Do you think he'll attack us if the news comes to them?"

"Isn't it already making moves?"

"According to Rowan, they had taken care of one possible leak," Ansel said, reading through the letter. "How, though?"

"They asked for another bottle of Narcis Poison, didn't they?" Althea asked. When Ansel nodded, she smiled.

The Narcis potion was one of her more potent potions, now further improved with Hoffen.

Apparently, they had to use it to kill a couple of people related to Valov, a mercenary team called Yutut Mercenary Team. They managed to get the poison—which was an odorless, colorless, easily dispersable fluid—into the enemy's food.

The next day, they suffered intense pain in the gut before finally succumbing to it.

It became quite the commotion which alerted the leading party. Fortunately, because there was a rather long time lag in between, the investigators had to go to several different places to investigate, and their little stunt went completely undetected.

Speaking of the Yutut Mercenary team, there were still one or two members imprisoned in the Iron Mountains prison.

They sent a letter telling Reno to interrogate the few surviving members there, one of whom was called Rod, who had been in conflict with Hugo before.

Oaths were strict, but there was bound to be loopholes somewhere, especially when they had their own information.

For instance, it was easier to confirm the knowledge they already had than gain new ones from the prisoners. In interrogations, if they asked something the person already knew, they could confirm it because, technically, they hadn't 'told' the secret.

Anyway, each of them poured over the summary of information they had of the two territories.

Voumi Town was a level 1 Town that had been upgraded for nearly 50 years. As they knew, their industry was brick-making. They had subsidiaries that were focused on gathering clay, huge amounts of it, too.

The current lord had ascended to his current position a little over 20 years ago, supposedly taking the token from his brother's murderer.

He did not have a child, but had plenty of women. The assumed heir was his nephew, the former lord's son, Hesso.

Rowan was very honest and had also mentioned in his letter of his complicated relationship with the noble house there. He did not say anything beyond this, and she could tell he was very uncomfortable with the fact.

On the other hand, Valov Town was a Level 2 Town thousands of kilometers northwest. The Lord had one legitimate son, Besston, a level 36 swordsman. If the rumors were true, then there was also an illegitimate son by the name of Baltimore, may he not rest in peace.

Other than this, there didn't seem to be a relationship between them except that many of Valov's teams pass through Voumi in order to get to territories South, East, and Southeast.

In any case, a lot of the teams Valov sent had perished in the past year, and soon they might send stronger people, and that might get really dangerous, especially for Iron Mountains.

"Voumi Town and Valov Town… how do we deal with each of them?" Ansel mumbled, feeling bad about it.

It wasn't that he was terrified, but it felt uncomfortable to have swords pointed at them like this.

Some people even imagined the worst-case scenario: What if they teamed up and decided to attack this region continuously, possibly at the same time?

However, the people in the table earned the right to be there for a reason: They all had good heads (or instincts) on their shoulders.

Althea's fingers tapped on the table in thought, and everyone went silent as they submerged in their own thoughts.

Mathilda looked at them. "Who said we have to?" she asked, making everyone turn to her.

The moment she said this, Althea's eyes widened at a thought. Her emerald eyes met the older woman's and, immediately, they entered the same wavelength of thought.

Amused glints graced their intelligent eyes, and it puzzled everyone else whose minds were still trying to follow theirs.

Althea chuckled and decided to explain. "What if… we get them fighting against each other?"

Their tier differences didn't matter… as long as those two territories kept each other distracted, that would be good enough.